


The Topography of a Kiss

by lysanatt



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:19:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysanatt/pseuds/lysanatt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief, but serious affair with Remus Lupin leaves Neville longing for something that he knows that he can never have -- or so he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Topography of a Kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [torino10154](https://archiveofourown.org/users/torino10154/gifts).



Neville likes earth, dirt, soil. He likes the way it forms hills and valleys; lakes and brooks and rivers. He likes how plants have their roots firmly dug into rich land; how they nourish each other. Plants die, rot and create life and food for the earth and for new plants. He likes the return of seasons and years; a never-ending circle. He likes sitting quietly outside, watching life pass by: a quiet observation of the topographies of life and land.

Before him, as he sits in the damp grass, the sun is pushing the darkness away, gently, still with the softness of summer in its smile. Hogwarts is beautiful in the early morning light. The smell of grass and the first dead leaves rotting on the ground mix with the scent of sun-baked apples: a few are still hanging on to the reminiscence of August.

Neville often finds that he, too, has his roots firmly set in this piece of land, Hogwarts. How things have changed since he came here as a student, a wilting plant, so very insecure.

 

_'...before dawn?'_

_Neville looks up, so immersed in deep thoughts that he did not hear Lupin's question. 'I'm sorry?'_

_'Shouldn't you be in bed before dawn?' Lupin smiles, such a tired smile. Neville is strangely caught up in the movement of lips, in the way worries and sorrows have made an indelible imprint on Lupin's face. It looks like a map of sadness._

_Neville returns the smile. He suspects that he, too, looks sad, only his map is not so advanced; its topography not yet clear. 'Look who's talking,' Neville says. 'I could ask you the same question, Professor.' Around them the house is strangely silent. Neville would like the entire world to be crying, because the loss they have suffered is still raw and unbearable. Not that Neville was close to Sirius Black. But he is close to his friends, and it hurts him to see Harry's pain._

_'Shouldn't you be using the holidays for something else than sitting in a dark, dank house with a bunch of old people?' Professor Lupin lets the question he was asked slide._

_'Like what?' Neville asks, forgetting his usual politeness. 'Playing sitting duck for a bunch of Death Eaters because they think I'm a blood-traitor?'_

_'There is that.' Lupin sinks down on the corner of the threadbare sofa; it matches his clothes, both in age and in wear. 'I'm sorry, Neville. There is going to be a war, and we're going to...'_

_'Going to lose more friends,' Neville finishes the sentence. 'Yeah.' Without thinking, he puts a comforting hand on Professor Lupin's knee. 'I know.'_

_Lupin says nothing, and Neville feels as if the touch makes the shadows a little less dark._

_Somehow it is no surprise that Professor Lupin puts his hand on top of Neville's and returns the small titbit of comfort._

_Lupin's hand is dry and warm and strong, and they sit like that for a long time, quietly comforting each other in the dark._

_The sun dances a new day up before they let go._

 

'Have you been up early or have you decided not to go to bed before dawn, Professor Longbottom?'

Neville jerks; somehow war has imprinted itself on his body, on its reactions: little paths of nervous energy that never seem to disappear. He looks over his shoulder at the intruder: Hogwarts' youngest, newest professor. 'Professor Lupin. I assume that in your case it is a question of "not going to bed before dawn"?'

Ted Lupin flops down in the soft grass next to Neville. 'Oh, come on, Neville! Must you be so formal?' Ted turns over, resting his head on one arm. 'It is just strange... seeing you like this - all professional and...' Ted sticks out his tongue. 'boring.'

'Excuse me?' Neville glares at Lupin, a glare that would have made Professor Snape proud. 'This is not a party, Professor Lupin. It is a school for wizarding children.' Neville almost instantly berates himself for sounding like his formidable grandmother. Ted Lupin is young, handsome and good company and Neville feels oddly as if his own sell-by date has arrived, years too early.

'There is that,' Lupin says, as his hair changes from blue to pink. 'But let's make it bit less boring. I don't believe that you're as dull as you appear. I mean... we've been colleagues for a year by now, and I've been watching you. You're not even close to being... geriatric.'

'Oh, thank you _so_ much.' Neville is slightly offended. 'I'm sorry for taking my work seriously.'

Ted rolls over and gets on his hands and knees in the tall grass. He reminds Neville of a puppy - the much smaller equivalent of what Remus Lupin was. For a moment Ted looks so much like his father that Neville's heart skips a beat before it resumes beating, something that Remus was not allowed: a beating heart, a full life. Caught in sadness, Neville just looks at the young man in front of him: a happier, healthier man.

Then it happens.

'Shouldn't you be using your life for something else than sitting in a dark, dank house with a bunch of old people?' Ted says, echoing something his father said so many years ago. The memory brings only pain and the distorted thought of what could have been. Neville just sits there and remembers. Memories are bittersweet and unbidden. That one night when Remus and...

 

_'Neville...' Remus' voice is hoarse, low._

_It is one of those nights when none of them can sleep; one of the nights where they sneak downstairs, careful not to walk on the most creaking of steps and the driest and loudest of floor boards._

_Neville looks up. Remus sound so desperate. 'Yes?' Remus' arm around his shoulder and the hand that rests (it never gets anywhere, it has its place there; a place from which it does not stray) just above Neville's knee are warm and safe._

_Kisses are made of valleys and hills and rivers and sun. That moment, Neville_ knows _. Remus' lips are like that. Somehow it feels as if it is everything he has ever liked about the nature and growth he is so immersed in. It is that: the nurturing of something precious and good and beautiful. All that Neville knows, even before the kiss is real. And when it happens, when Remus finally finishes what he should have been doing weeks ago, the sensation is like falling from a mountain, into a river: absolutely, without comparison, the most fantastic thing Neville has ever done. It is soft and wet and deep and like falling - falling without ever reaching the ground. Neville falls into Remus' embrace and the night... the night is short and sweet._

_There is nothing like it and there never will be again, because a few months later, Remus is gone._

 

'... gone?'

'What?' Neville pulls himself out of the stroll down memory lane. He reminds himself for Merlin knows which time to store the memory away; to let it be. Of course, forgetful as he is, he will forget to do exactly that. Chasing the remains of loss and sadness away with a deep sigh, he directs his shattered attention at Remus' son. 'I didn't hear.'

'Before you know it your life is gone, and you've had no fun!'

Neville laughs. Ted Lupin is so much like his father would have been, had he not been cursed: it is impossible to stay in the gloomy place that Neville has just visited when someone so wonderfully wicked is right in front of him. Ted is an island of confident charm, untainted by the beast that Remus had to live with. Somehow, despite his apparent youth, the younger Lupin feels safe and calm in the exact same way that Remus did. 'I've had plenty of fun, thank you very much. I'm not twenty any longer, and I don't think my idea of fun might be the same as yours,' Neville protests, unable to hide a smile. This is the kind of Lupin who'd have made magic maps and pranks and... Neville realises that he is looking for a trace of his lost youth and of the man he once loved, if only for a while or - taking the pain of the ancient memories into consideration - for his entire life.

Only things change.

Ted's lips are red and soft and wet, cooling like the early summer's sea. They are like the ground covered in short grass: spicy and pliant. The upper lip forms a tiny valley, the bottom lip an abyss of desire and lust. And when Ted throws his arms around Neville's neck and the kisses deepen, the glacier that has been Neville's heart melts, oh Merlin, it melts so fast that nothing matters but to take in Ted's warmth, his burning, omnivorous lust.

Around them the mountains rise; dark shapes against the blue morning sky. A large bird circles the sky and the day shines so brightly that Ted's body creates a shadow that blends with the rocks behind him. Neville sinks into the day and the light, watching Ted above him as they both come, mouth against mouth, kiss against kiss.

Things change. Only the topography of kisses does not, and Neville, in that regard, is happy that something in his life seems to be constant. Neville soon discovers that Ted is not his father and clearly Remus was nothing like Ted, but Neville is fine with that.

Fine.

**Author's Note:**

> For Torino10154. Thanks to red_day_dawning for beta.


End file.
